


This Ladder is Ours

by marxeline



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, very background jess/rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 10:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5662309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marxeline/pseuds/marxeline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe looks a little hurt, like Finn’s insulted his pride, but it passes quickly. “No, no- I just meant, it’s good that it fits. If it hadn’t you might have left it on Jakku. It’s nice, you know. Serendipitous.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Ladder is Ours

**Author's Note:**

> Title credit to The Joy Formidable.

Seeing him wake up, you’d think Finn had never seen a sun. He rouses about as groggily as expected, blinks once at the light, whines and goes straight back to sleep. Nobody says a word.

His second attempt fares more successfully, given that it is dusk. A droid detects the motion and within ten minutes of scans and basic memory tests (he’s a bit stumped at first on ‘Could you tell me your name?’ but does just fine with the rest) Finn finds himself keeping impressive company for someone who hadn’t bathed beyond a droid-issued scrub in _however long it had been_. Visitors start to file into the room and Finn aches with uncertainty noting Rey’s absence. The ache deepens on remembering Han’s; it settles cold and tough in his stomach. Trailing behind General Organa with a plate of half-finished noodles in hand is Poe. A warmth spreads through Finn’s body to nestle against all its bruises. It’s a tired warmth, but a sure one.

“Welcome back,” General Organa’s voice is kind to match her eyes. The phrase is foreign to Finn; He’s never been ‘back’ anywhere but trooper bases, and he was never welcomed on his return. This is, of course, a rebel base, not a family home. But it’s somewhere to come back to, he hopes.

 

-

 

“It fits,” Poe says. He tears a bread roll apart and gives half to Finn, which is kind of unnecessary - Finn could just get up off the rock they’re sat on and head to the mess hall - but the gesture is nice. Finn thinks it’s an offering of sorts, an invitation to open up; A friendship roll. It’s definitely unnecessary.

“What does?”

“The jacket,” Poe slaps him on the shoulder to demonstrate. Again, unnecessary. But, again, not unwelcome.

“Yes,” Finn doesn’t know what else to say. It does. “Do you want it back?”

Poe looks a little hurt, like Finn’s insulted his pride, but it passes quickly. “No, no- I just meant, it’s good that it fits. If it hadn’t you might have left it on Jakku. It’s nice, you know. Serendipitous.”

Finn hasn’t heard that word before. Troopers get a pretty good linguistic education but this is probably one of those ‘superfluous’ words you get in fiction or myth, Finn thinks bitterly. He makes a mental note to read more - his list of mental notes is getting pretty long. He makes a mental note to find himself a notebook. “Serendipitous…” he leads, squinting at Poe.

“Oh- when you find something good when you’re not actually looking for it. It’s called serendipity.” Poe looks away and takes a bite of the roll.

 

-

 

There’s a corner in one of the hangars. One of the platforms running high around the edge of the cavernous building carries right up to the front wall and leads nowhere. Finn finds it on his third day of regained consciousness after deciding he should probably stop trailing Poe in his limited free time. Because Poe is probably a little sick of him and Finn needs - actually, really needs - some time alone. It’s not something he’s ever had in more than brief snatches, moments of doubt turning into moments of resolution on the trooper base and endless running running running since. He wonders when he’s ever had time to really breathe. Not the measured, forced calm of a trooper or the heaving lungfuls of a fugitive in brief respite, but the natural function of a human being. Watching the pilots busy themselves amidst the sea of engineers from on high, Finn lets himself breathe.

He remembers the way the lightsaber felt in his hands, heavy and static and clumsy. With a close-mouthed smile he thinks fondly and with no small sense of awe of how Rey held it, with ease and grace and something in her core which made it a natural extension of her limbs. Not virtuosic, not yet, but with the obvious-to-anyone-watching potential for virtuoso which requires less repeated practice and more sharpening of mind than anything else. Finn isn’t jealous - as a general rule, he isn’t jealous, because that would open up an emotional can of worms he can’t deal with now or maybe ever - but it does make him want to learn. Maybe not how to wield a saber, but how to do something that isn’t using a blaster. He’s damn good with a blaster, but he wants to be damn good at something which isn’t solely a weapon. Finn wants to be more than a soldier, and he knows from his brief time on the base that there is more to being part of the Resistance than skill with a blaster.

Another deep breath, and Finn really focuses this time, really feels the way the air fills his lungs. On the exhale his eyes flutter shut and he feels newly centred, aware of his body and aware that it is his. His to volunteer and his to lend and his to, ultimately, own. That’s what he always thinks when someone notes his lack of possessions - the letter Rey left on his bedside the day she left to find Luke, Poe’s jacket; He thinks ‘my body is mine, and that’s worth a lot.' 

Swivelling slightly where he’s sat he dangles his legs over the platform edge and rests his forearms on the lower bar. He kicks at the air playfully and watches Jess bickering with an engineer, arms crossed and stance defensive as though protecting the plane behind her with only five foot four inches and a wrench. To her credit, the engineer looks pretty nervous.

 

-

 

It’s a balmy evening when Rey comes back. Finn suspects it from the sudden distance and immediate relief which flashes across General Organa’s face, but he knows it when he hears the familiar strangled Wookie roar travelling through the building minutes later. He barrels out the room, down the corridor, and dodges around Chewbacca to get to her. She looks taller. She’s beaming.

So is Finn. “Welcome back,” he says into the hug.

“You too,” she leans back and punches him lightly on the arm and Finn is going to have to talk through the concept of ‘punching a friend’ with someone, sometime. He’ll make a note of it: _Am I a particularly punchable person? Is it the jacket? Can we go back to hugging instead?_ Rey wets her lips, eyes on the floor. “Let’s not almost-die again any time soon, okay?"

They’re going to have to talk about it at some point. All of it; Han and Kylo and the Force and all that’s happened since - Finn can gloss over his side of the story pretty quickly - but it can wait.

Rey isn’t looking at Finn anymore, but over his shoulder. She isn’t beaming anymore; this is a different kind of smile. Finn glances back and sees Jess picking intently at the flecks of dirt on her overalls and he smirks. _Okay, it can’t wait too long_.

 

-

 

“You’re swooning,” Poe jokes, one day, and the warmth in Finn boils over.

He crosses the room in three strides, walking Poe back against the door, not missing the hitch in Poe’s breath, or the way the room feels suddenly half its size. “I don’t swoon,” he’s kind of proud of how it comes out: a little low, a little husky. Poe bites his lip, obviously just as hyper aware as Finn is of how close their hips are. His eyes sweep Finn’s frame, thighs to torso to lips. 

Minutes later, with one hand splayed between Poe’s shoulder blades and the other buried in his - just as soft and thick as it looks holy _shit_ \- hair, Finn nudges one thigh forwards and pauses mid-pant to smile into Poe’s hitching breaths.

Poe draws back, eyes dark. “You’re beautiful.” 

It’s something Finn thinks should probably make him squirm a little. Those eyes are kind of intense and the feel of Poe’s body against him is kind of, well, intense. Plus it’s not something he’s used to - troopers didn’t make a habit of admiration. Troopers didn’t make a habit of attachment, full stop. Then again, that’s probably why he doesn’t squirm, or tell Poe to _ssh_ or shut him up with a kiss or a deliberate press of fingers _just there_. Instead he says, uncharacteristically small and reverent, “Thank you.”

And Poe takes advantage of his pause, takes him off guard and turns them so that Finn’s back meets the door with a bump. Poe squeezes his shoulders once and drops down.

Regaining the power of speech as he simultaneously loses his composure, grasp on reality, and so on, Finn splutters out a polyphony of obscenities and prayers and that’s when Poe gets his pants open, down, over his hips, and in the space between sudden aching chill and sudden searing heat, Finn’s heart spirals downwards. He threads his hands once again through Poe’s hair, can’t stop running them through it over and over, busying his fingers with as much movement as possible to stop his hips from the same.

 

-

 

“It’s mutual,” Finn whispers, voice low and head resting in the crook of Poe’s shoulder. He feels it more than hears it when a questioning _hm?_ rumbles through Poe’s throat and chest. He’s struck by the intimacy of the moment, shivering through the heat radiating skin-to-skin. “Serendipity. We found each other.”

“You need a pilot.”

“I need a pilot.”

Poe’s fingers come up to brush Finn’s cheek. “I need you.”

Finn swallows. Not ‘a trooper,’ or ‘a rebel,’ just him. “Whatever I am,” he says, voice light but only half joking.

“Whatever you are,” Poe whispers, and it’s not at all a joke. It’s an answer.

 

-

 

“Do you ever miss it?” Finn asks through a mouthful of food.

Waiting to swallow before answering, Rey tilts her head to the side. “Hm?”

“Jakku. Home.”

Rey laughs freely. “You know, I don’t think I knew what I was missing.”

“But you have somewhere to go back to.”

“Finn, I always come back here.”

Skewering a cube of meat, Finn avoids eye contact. “This base isn’t forever, though, is it?”

She squeezes his hand. “Then I’ll come back wherever you are.”

There’s an honest duplicity in the way she says ‘you’; Finn sees her briefly scan the mess hall and his face flushes pleasantly. Jess and Poe are making their way over.

Before they’re in earshot, Finn squeezes back. “So will I.”

 

-

 

He leaves for the first time since waking up and it’s okay. Rey hugs him for a long time, telling him she’s making up for the last time, for their not getting a ‘goodbye’ last time, and Finn is selfishly glad he was asleep then. He’s glad he didn’t have to watch her leave. General Organa gives him an extra warm smile. It really is like she’s giving it to him, and it’s something he receives gratefully, from someone to whom smiles must come with so much difficulty these days. It’s the very least he can do to give her his warmest smile in return. Smiles, for Finn, come so easily now.

This one fades just a little but lingers when he steels himself and turns to an endearingly sleep-rumpled Poe. Neither of them make to close the couple of feet between them; That would lead to inappropriate touching and probably tears, Finn’s sure, and he’s not prepared for either eventuality now. Instead he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes on the exhale, determined to catalogue the feeling of knowing Poe is right there, the physicality of his own body in humming proximity to Poe’s. When he opens his eyes, Poe is breathing deep himself, turning the breath into a deliberate nod, biting his lip. Finn clears his throat, still conscious of their surroundings, their time constraints, and mentally scribbling ‘prolonged silences’ just below ‘inappropriate touching’ on the list of things to avoid before a trip.

Squinting into the morning, groggy and light-sensitive, Poe meets his eye. “See you soon. 

“Serendipity,” Finn grins.

With a series of low, reluctant beeps, BB-8 rolls over to nudge Finn’s foot. Poe shakes his head, eyes soft. “Not anymore, I’ll be looking for you now. No accident.”

The best part of leaving, Finn thinks as Jess takes them skywards, will be coming home.


End file.
